Design and Operational Rules of Social Networking - Literature review Example

? Social networking and employee identities Table of contents Introduction 3 2. Social Networking and Employee Identities 3 3. Conclusion 8 4. Recommendations 9 5. References and Bibliography 10 5.1 References 10 5.2 Bibliography 11 6. Appendices 12 1. Introduction The use of social networking as a tool of communication has become a common practice worldwide. The extensive benefits of social networking seem to be the key reason for its popularity. One of most important aspects of social networking seems to be its ability to be adapted to the needs of its users. However, social networking has been also related to certain drawbacks. For example, when used for recruitment purposes social networking sites may fail to meet all the necessary security requirements. In the workplace, where social networking is often used for promoting the communication between employees, similar security problems have appeared. The risks of social networking in regard to a particular security issue, the identity of its users, are explored in this paper. Reference is made, especially, to the identities of employees, as users of the social networking sites. The literature review related to this issue verifies the extensive use of social networking sites, as a tool of communication, in the workplace and the involvement of these sites in the hiring process. Also, the studies published in this field indicate the failures of social networking sites to offer to their users full protection of their identities. 2. Social Networking and Employee Identities Social networking sites are extensively used in the workplace. In the past, employees accessed these sites just for entertainment reasons (Timm 2010). Today, social networking sites are officially used in the workplace for a variety of purposes: a) for improving the communication between employees in various organizational departments, b) for helping to the sharing of documents and other material between employees; the performance of e-mail in regard to such service can be low as problems in the central servers of the e-mail providers are common; c) for developing critical organizational activities; reference should be made, as examples, to the marketing and recruitment processes (Timm 2010). On the other hand, the benefits of social networking for organizations cannot be doubted. Indeed, social media can help businesses to improve their market image, to increase their customer base and to improve their communication with their customers (Society for Human Resource Management 2012). In addition, through social media employees are able to share their ideas and their concerns in regard to the tasks assigned to them (Society for Human Resource Management 2012). However, in firms where employees use social media, the exposure of IT systems to various threats is quite high (Society for Human Resource Management 2012). The disadvantages of the use of social media, as related to the workplace could be described as follows: a) increased risk for ‘virus attacks and online scams’ (Society for Human Resource Management 2012), b) potential damages on organization’s reputation, a problem that usually results from the negative comments of employees in social networking sites (Society for Human Resource Management 2012) and c) decrease of employee performance; such problem exists in case that employees spend a lot of time ‘in updating their online profile’ (Society for Human Resource Management 2012). According to a survey published in 2011, currently a high percentage of employers, about 48.3% allow to their employees the use of social networking sites in work, even for non-business use (Fisher 2011, Figure 1, Appendices). It should be noted that a percentage of 25% of employers, a rather high percentage, prohibits any access to social media in work if the use is not made for covering business needs. On the other hand, a high percentage of employers, about 70.7% prefer to adjust the IT systems in the workplace so that the access to social networking sites is not permitted (Fisher 2011, Figure 1). In addition, at a percentage of 55.1% the participants responded that in their firm a policy has been introduced for regulating the access to social networking sites, when the use of such sites is necessary for certain aspects of business operations (Fisher 2011, Figure 1). Another important finding of the above survey is the following one: a percentage of 44.1% of the employers, i.e. the firms where the participants work, have implemented policies for monitoring the activities of their employees in regard to social media, ‘both inside and outside the office’ (Fisher 2011). It should be noted that the users of social networking sites are often not aware of the potential consequences of uploading material in their online profile (Sicilliano 2010). Aiming to create a well-designed profile, the users of social networking sites often tend to upload information that can cause severe implications, especially identity theft (Sicilliano 2010). Indeed, it has been proved that there are ‘at least three pieces of information’ (Sicilliano 2010) included in the personal account/ profile of social networking sites’ users that can facilitate identity theft (Sicilliano 2010). Reference can be made, for example, to ‘birth date, mother’s maiden name, name/ surname and address’ (Sicilliano 2010). In addition, it has been revealed that a quite high percentage, about 60%, of these sites’ users is not aware of the risks related to the information published in their online account (Sicilliano 2010). For this reason, the use of social networking sites’ for creating online profiles is kept at high levels, especially by employees who consider these sites as a means for highlighting their professional expertise and capabilities, a practice that will help them to access easier the workplace, if such need appears. According to Holman (2013) the high expansion of social networking sites has led to the following phenomenon: ‘the online identities of people have been changed’ (Holman 2013). Indeed, in the past most of the Internet users had just an e-mail address through which they could cover their needs for communication and exchange of information/ documents (Holman 2013). Today, the following practice has appeared: employees have online profiles in social media so that they are informed on available positions (Holman 2013). These profiles are considered as online identities that can have many implications, apart from their benefits (Holman 2013). In fact, there are cases that employees create such profile after the relevant advice of their employer (Holman 2013). There are cases of employers who have not been aware of the information exchanged between their employees and persons outside the firm; loss of valuable business information or damage of the firm’s image in the market are common problems related to the non-controllable use of social networking sites in the workplace (Holman 2013). Of particular importance is the case of identity theft; users of social networking sites manage to have access to critical personal information of other users and, then, they are able to steal their identity (Holman 2013). Navetta (2012) refers to an important aspect of the use of social networking sites by employees: while using these sites, employees are likely to share information related to their work (Navetta 2012). In certain cases, the pieces of work-related information uploaded in the online account of an employee can lead to severe damages for his employer (Navetta 2012). In fact it is possible for a user of such site to steal the identity of another user and then to contact one of the latter’s friends in order to exchange information (Navetta 2012). In this way, an unknown person can have access to sensible personal or corporate data, a fact that can have unpredictable implications for both the employee and the employer (Navetta 2012). For this reason it is suggested to employees ‘to avoid sharing sensible personal or corporate information through their online profile’ (Navetta 2012) even if the relevant pieces of information would be directed to a friend or member of the employee’s family (Navetta 2012). The use of social networking by employees is further analyzed in the article of Samuel (2012). In the above article, published in The Wall Street Journal, emphasis is given to the individuals who ‘use social networking for building their personal/ public identity based on their work’ (Samuel 2012). The blogs that provide to the public information in regard to particular themes/ problems which are normally managed by professionals are examples of such case (Samuel 2012). When these individuals are hired in a specific position, they have already built their online profile/ identity (Samuel 2012). According to Samuel (2012) there are cases of employees who are quite popular in social media when they join a particular organization; in fact, there are individuals who have an identity, or else brand, more popular than the identity/ brand of their organization (Samuel 2012). The increased use of social networking in enterprises has resulted to a series of important problems. Indeed, the access to social networking sites in the workplace has been related to the vulnerability of business IT systems to problems, such as ‘identity theft, cyber bullying, reputation damage and Internet threats’ (Timm 2010). Particular emphasis should be given to the expansion of identity theft through social networking sites, a problem that has become common in businesses internationally (Timm 2010). Identity theft reflects the following activity: a user of a social networking site gathers a high volume of personal data related to another user (Timm 2010); after gathering such data a user of a social networking site is able to steal the identity of the other person/ owner of the data (Timm 2010). In a report published by the Economic Times in 2012 emphasis is given on the expansion of identity theft across businesses that use social networking sites in their daily operations (The Economic Times 2012). In the above report, the comments of ‘Gartner, a Global IT Consultancy firm’ (The Economic Times 2012) in regard to social networking and their consequences on business operations are presented. It is suggested to businesses that use social networking to check the terms of use of such sites and to introduce practices for securing identity protection (The Economic Times 2012). In the particular report an important detail in regard to the use of social media in the workplace is revealed: in 2010 the percentage of firms that fully prohibited to their employees to access social networking sites was estimated to 50% (The Economic Times 2012). By 2014 this percentage is expected to be decreased at the level of 30% (The Economic Times 2012). 3. Conclusion Social networking sites offer to their users the potential to communicate on real-time and enjoy a series of benefits, such as the sharing of files, the creation of groups of friends with similar interests, the rapid access to work offers and so on. However, these sites have also related to certain disadvantages. Particular problem seems to exist in regard to the ability of these sites to guarantee the safety of identities of their users. This phenomenon has a series of implications: employers may have concerns in adopting social networking for covering the communication needs in the workplace. As for the employees, an important issue appears: how these individuals can continue using social networking sites since the security of their identity cannot be guaranteed? The literature presented above shows that social networking sites cannot provide full safety to their users, in terms of their personal information. Of course, safety features have been implemented in these sites, for guaranteeing the security of data of users, but failures have not avoided. For the users of these sites the above fact leads to the following assumption: the personal information of these individuals can be revealed anytime to an unknown number of users/ members of these sites. The introduction of a series of measures by the developers of these sites could possibly limit the risk mentioned above. Also, certain measures in the workplace could help to avoid damages, such as the non-authorized access to employees’ identities. 4. Recommendations The design and the operational rules of social networking have been appropriately customized in order to be able to provide to their users the potential to enjoy innovative communication features and quite fast exchange of information. As also noted above, these sites have certain protocols for ensuring that the personal data of users will not be accessed by unauthorized persons, apart from the sites’ administrators and only under particular rules. However, the continuous safety failures of these sites, lead to the need for a series of measures. Employers in modern organizations should take certain measures for protecting the identities of their employees who use social networking sites: a) employees should close all applications in their computer before joining in a social networking site; in this way, the risk of potential access of the firm’s sensible data by unauthorized users could be minimized; b) advanced security tools should be implemented in the IT systems of the firms where the use of social networking sites is part of the business strategy; c) in firms where failures have been reported because of the use of social networking by employees, even if the firm’s strategy does not allow such practice, the following practices should be used: c1) appropriate software should be implemented so that the systems of the business are fully protected when the access to social networking sites is attempted, c2) meetings should be organized in the workplace so that employees are informed on the potential risks of using social networking sites in the workplace and c3) the IT systems of the firms involved should be appropriately adjusted so that the access to social networking sites is blocked every time such initiative is taken; d) under certain terms, it should be fully prohibited to the employees of a business to access social networking sites in the workplace, especially if the performance of the firm’s IT systems in terms of safety is low. Such case exists when the employer cannot retrieve the funds required for the implementation of advanced software and other tools for securing the safety of the firm’s IT network against potential violations; e) the use of social networking sites for developing various organizational tasks, such as promoting marketing schemes or developing the hiring process, should be limited as possible; as an alternative, a computer not connected with the firm’s central database could be used for developing tasks that require the use of social networking sites; f) the establishment of an intranet/ extranet network should be rather preferred, especially in businesses where the volume of the data stored is extremely high and the need for securing their safety is emergent. 5. References and Bibliography 5.1 References Fisher, L., 2011. 44% of companies track employees’ social media use in AND out of the office. TNW Europe Conference. Available at http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2011/08/17/44-of-companies-track-employees-social-media-use-in-and-out-of-the-office/ Holman, T., 2013. Social media is revolutionary, but it can damage your business. February 11, 2013. The Guardian. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media-network/media-network-blog/2013/feb/11/social-media-workplace Navetta, D., 2012. Employers Must Consider Social Media Risks. October 17, INFOSEC. Available at http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/22399--Employers-Must-Consider-Social-Media-Risks.html Samuel, A., 2012. Your Employee Is an Online Celebrity. Now What Do You Do? October 29, 2012. The Wall Street Journal. Available at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443995604578003082273743230.html Sicilliano, R., 2010. Social Media and Identity Theft Risks PT II. March 30, 2010. INFOSEC. Available at http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/3456-Social-Media-and-Identity-Theft-Risks-PT-II.html Society for Human Resource Management, 2012. Social Media: What are the advantages and disadvantages of social networking sites? What should we include in a policy? January 6, 2012. Available at http://www.shrm.org/TemplatesTools/hrqa/Pages/socialnetworkingsitespolicy.aspx Timm, C., 2010. Social Networking Risks for Corporations. Syngress. Available at http://www.syngress.com/phishwrap/social-networking-risks-for-corporations The Economic Times, 2012. Gartner urges social media to verify employees' identity. March 5, 2012. Available at http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-03-05/news/31124299_1_social-media-identity-gartner 5.2 Bibliography Altshuler, Y. and Elovici, Y., 2013. Security and Privacy in Social Networks. New York: Springer. Bertino, E. and Takahashi, K., 2010. Identity Management: Concepts, Technologies, and Systems. Norwood: Artech House. Breslin, J., Passant, A. and Decker, S., 2009. Social Semantic Web. New York: Springer. Ciampa, M., 2009 Security Awareness: Applying Pracitical Security in Your World. Belmont: Cengage Learning. Finkelstein, M., 2004. Networks. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield. Gillin, P. and Schwartzman, E., 2010. Social Marketing to the Business Customer: Listen to Your B2B Market, Generate Major Account Leads, and Build Client Relationships. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Golden, M., 2010. Social Media Strategies for Professionals and Their Firms: The Guide to Establishing Credibility and Accelerating Relationships. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Goodall, S., Goodall, H. and Schiefellbein, J., 2009. Business and Professional Communication in the Global Workplace. Belmont: Cengage Learning. Jordan-Meier, J., 2011. The Four Stages of Highly Effective Crisis Management: How to Manage the Media in the Digital Age. Boca Raton: CRC Press. Klososky, S., 2011. Enterprise Social Technologies: Helping Organizations Harness the Power of Social Media, Social Networking, Social Relevance. Austin: Greenleaf Book Group. Rannenberg, K., Deuker, A. and Royer, D., 2009. The future of identity in the information society. New York: Springer. Shelly, G. and Frydenberg, M., 2010. Web 2. 0: Concepts and Applications. Belmont: Cengage Learning. 6. Appendices Figure 1 – Use of social media in the workplace – Results of survey, 2011 (Source: Fisher) Read More